Sorry for the long wait, everyone! I thought I would have had time during Xmas break to write a bit, but I got really sick. First, stomach flu and then the flu. I was bedridden for most of it. The rest of the time, I replayed the Witcher 3 for the like the fourth time. But I'm back and even though school has started, I'll do my best to find time to finish up this story! I promise!
Karina001, so sorry for the long wait! Life has been hectic to no end!
Tuckerjnp, Shhhhhhhh!
Alliax, better late than never, I guess!
SilverNightmares, thank you so much!
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As the Sparrow slid into the coffin-like contraption, the scientist around her burst into action. They shouted orders at one another and began counting down the seconds left before the start of the procedure. One of them checked that she was correctly placed in the cool machine, positioned as to receive the serum's injections. Beyond the immediate circle of action stood the highly ranked generals of HYDRA, their cold, calculating eyes watching her with fixed intensity. They all knew how much rode on the success of this procedure. They all wanted to see her emerge alive and whole from that machine.
They just didn't care if she suffered along the way.
She exhaled lengthily as the scientists around her started flipping levers and switches. She shut her eyes, wishing the dread away. She allowed a wave of peace to pass through her being, even as memories of the previous procedures, and their agony, surfaced, unbidden, in her mind. When she opened her eyes anew, they found the gaze of one Winter Soldier, who stood just a few yards away, his expression calm and stoic.
She was not alone.
With a hiss, the open part of the machine descended towards her, encasing her very tightly in its space. She had never suffered from claustrophobia, but it was nonetheless hard not to feel a bit of panic as her body was snuggly compressed into the coffin. The pressure was not painful, but it served to remind her that she would not be able to move an inch for the remainder of the procedure.
Breathing evenly to calm her raging heart, she shut her eyes anew.
They opened only when she felt the needles press to her skin.
Her teeth grit together as, along the length of her arms, legs and torso, the tiny needles pierced her skin and plunged into the tissue below.
Her breathing became stiff, shallow, as she felt the pain of a hundred pinpricks cover her being. Yet, she knew that this was not the worse of it.
When her condition stabilised, the true agony began.
She felt the cold of the serum as it entered her being through the needles. Some of them were deeper to reach her veins and bones, others were shallow to affect her skin and muscles. All of them became the centre of a growing, fiery sort of sensation that spread through her being, from her core to the tips of her fingers and toes. The blaze invaded her neck, her mouth and her eyes, before settling like something angry within her skull. She tried to clamp her jaws shut to avoid screaming out… she tried to breathe to pass through the pain, to endure past it… but it only seemed to grow. It was no longer a blaze, it was a beast of a thousand claws, ripping at her flesh, at her muscles, at her organs… from within her throat rose a distorted, hollow groan that slowly morphed into a roar, into a howl as her very being seemed to melt…
She was being undone. Her very cells, down to the last atom, were being undone. There was nothing but agony, there had never been anything else than agony, all she had ever known was agony… forever, all she would ever know would be agony.
She never was, never will be…
There was nothing but pain, nothing but someone screaming a wordless prayer, a cry for mercy…
The anguish had gnawed its way into her bones, where it had undone everything, where it had broken and shattered her very being, where it had reduced her to ash and dust and nothingness…
Just when she thought it would never end, that she would vanish from existence as though she had never been, suddenly the agony receded.
At first, it seemed hesitant. As though it took too much pleasure in what it had caused her. It only seemed to waver, too timid to leave her being.
But then, she realised that it had left her bones. It had seeped out into her tissue, where it gnawed with half-hearted desire. It had run from her skull, from her jaw. She realised that she was silent, too stunned to scream anymore.
How long had she howled? It had felt like aeons. She had seen galaxies come and go, in her suffering. But her throat was not raw.
Instead, she was starting to feel well. The agony became more like an irritating scratching, before fading into a sort of whisper. She felt it tickle her skin.
She realised that the tickle was the sensation of the needles leaving her body. Once they were gone, she felt nothing.
Stunned, she felt the machine open. The pressure that had encased her, that had prevented her from lashing out as she suffered… it was gone. Someone was grabbing her to steady her, preventing her from falling out onto the floor. Strong arms, one human and one metal. Someone else was pricking her skin to draw blood, but she simply watched them, still unable to react.
There was noise around her, but it was as though her ears had been stuffed with cotton. Every sound was dull, distorted. She could not see clearly yet, her vision painful and blurred as she blinked and tried to bring the world into focus.
The person that held her did not let go. Slowly, her mind still abuzz, she managed to lift her eyes and meet that person's gaze.
The eyes she stared into were stormy, gorgeous… they were familiar… it took her a moment to replace her memory of them, to blink away the blurriness that prevented her from seeing the man's face.
When she saw him… when she remembered him…
Everything else came back to her.
Her vision cleared. The world around her returned into focus. The shouted voices that surrounded her were suddenly comprehensible.
"We did it!"
"Her cellular structure is stable!"
"The serum worked!"
A tiny smile appeared on her lips. She never broke her stare with the man that was holding her steady. His own eyes seemed to be searching hers, curious, cautious… somewhere, beneath the encoded words that held him captive, she knew that he was starting to understand what was going to happen.
She raised a gentle hand to Bucky's face and brushed back a stray strand of hair, that minute smile never leaving her lips.
"You're going to have to trust me." She whispered gently as, around them, celebration erupted, and the men began shaking one another's' hands, clapping each other on the back, gleeful. They seemed to have forgotten about the young woman they'd subjected to unimaginable pain in order to verify their experiment. They had forgotten about the man that was with her, which they'd shattered in an altogether different sort of torture, ages ago.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Bucky gave her a single nod.
Gently, he released her as she found her footing. It felt more solid than it had in decades.
"Kill everyone in this room. Prevent anyone from escaping." She ordered softly, speaking barely above a whisper. Her voice was without emotion, but her eyes betrayed a dangerous sort of fury that was laced with unwavering determination.
Bucky moved like a machine, and she followed with renewed energy.
The first scientist never knew what hit him. He went from laughing alongside his brethren to falling limply to the floor, his skull shattered from a single blow, delivered by a vibranium fist. By the time the others reacted, Bucky had already massacred two more, and she had crossed the room with the speed and agility of a leopard, reaching the stunned generals.
Thrusting her hands out in front of her, feeling a newfound sort of power flowing through her veins, she willed a blaze into existence. It left her fingers with volcanic heat, a wall of fire that enveloped the astounded men before they could so much as cry out. The flames engulfed their lungs as they breathed it in, melting their flesh so quickly that they died before ever even feeling pain. A courtesy they had not paid her. Ever the trained assassin, she moved like lightening, reaching one of the soldiers that she had not burned, who was drawing his gun with a look of utter horror painted upon his face.
Her fist met his jaw with the force of a moving train, shattering it. He stumbled back, but before he could so much as catch his footing, she was seizing him by the head and twisting his neck until it snapped like a twig.
He fell and she moved on, rapidly catching up the panicked men that were trying to reach the only door to the room. Fire found them easily, silencing their screams as they melted beneath its intensity.
She turned and saw that Bucky had just as easily disposed of whomever was left in the room. They alone stood, surrounded by a sea of corpses. Their gazes crossed and they exchanged a nod.
It had all happened so quickly, so suddenly… no one had even thought to set off the alarm. Such was the testament to how much no one had expected her to do what she just did: none of them had seen her coming. None of them had guessed what she was after.
"Watch the entrance." She ordered Bucky as she strode over the dead men, reaching one of the computers in the room. The Soldier diligently seized a gun that had been dropped in the fray and cocked it, raising it with trained hands to guard the door.
She accessed the computer with rapid, trained hands.
Deva was not the only one that was good with technology. Unbeknown to anyone, the Sparrow had long since surveyed the base's lockdown protocol and security measures. She's made herself familiar with what she could and would do once she was ready to act.
Her quick fingers launched a silent lockdown, barring every exit to the compound without raising the alarm. She verified the flight and mission log, scowling a bit when she saw that out of the four other Winter Soldiers, two had been sent out earlier on undisclosed missions. This meant that only two remained in the base… she'd been hoping on having them all here when this time came, but she would have to work with what she had.
Some months ago, she'd asked Deva to code a program for her. It was supposed to systematically and irrevocably destroy any data within a system once it was launched. Initially, she'd told Deva that she meant to use it in Wakanda, but it had never come to pass. They'd instead hacked the country on their mission there. However, that program was still in her possession… and Deva had no memory of it, as she'd been reset for a new mission not long after she'd coded it. HYDRA's own methodology would be its undoing.
The Sparrow walked over to her clothes, which still lay on the ground where she'd dropped them before entering the coffin-like contraption. She pulled on her shirt rapidly, noting that it was slick with spilt blood, before slipping into her pants. From one of her pockets, she withdrew a tiny SD card, which she carried back to the computer.
From then on, it was a matter of time. Her face set into a grim sort of grimace, she launched Deva's program. There was no hesitation in her motions: she wanted to see everything in this system wiped from living memory. Before leaving the computers behind, she launched another program, this one simpler: it consisted of a countdown timer that would activate a signal beacon once it reached zero. Thinking quickly, trying to estimate how much time she needed to buy herself, the young woman bit at her lip, before rapidly selecting forty minutes on the prompting screen. She could only hope it would be enough to do all that she had to do.
With that deed done, she turned back to Bucky.
He had watched her work, his brow furrowed into a careful crease. They exchanged a moment of tense silence as she stared at him, her face hard to read. Their setting was almost surreal… the scattered Hydra generals, doctors and scientists… the slowly disaggregating Hydra computer system behind her… the odd glow in her eyes.
"The men in this room had to die." She told him in a cold, ruthless voice. "They were the nerves and the hearts of HYDRA, and as long as any of them survived this day, the organisation would never have fallen. They were not monsters, not all of them, but to ensure the future of the world was free of their hold, they had to be eliminated." She sighed. "Such is not the case of everyone else in this compound, save the two Winter Soldiers that are still here… as such, I'm ordering you to spare any worker we see, unless I say otherwise. If we come across soldiers, you are to use any force necessary to ensure that neither of us is harmed. If they shoot to kill, so should you. If we happen upon the Winter Soldiers, you are to eliminate them with extreme prejudice. I need you to know that they are not like you. There is nothing left of the men and women they once were… there is no retrieving them. They have to die if we want to get out of here alive."
Bucky stared at her, his eyes hard, searching… if she guessed his thousand questions, his muted desire to speak up and oppose her heartless decision, she did not act upon it…
"Let's go." She broke the tension.
They set out of the grim room, two shadows intent on murder.
(0)
She led them through the eerily empty compound without hesitation. Bucky had taken the time to map his surroundings all the time he'd been a prisoner in his own body, forced to follow the Sparrow obediently as she led him about soundlessly. He'd carefully memorised the compound's layout and, as such, knew exactly where they were going… if he hadn't been frozen behind those code words, he would have probably expressed surprise. However, he had unable to do any such thing, so he instead found himself following the brutal young woman silently, hoping against hope that she was not ultimately leading them to their demise.
They turned a corner into a long white corridor so alike all the others… the only difference with this one was that there was an armed soldier stationed by one of the doors, his semi-automatic gun clenched in rigid hands, his gaze fixed forward. As the Sparrow neared, his dark eyes swept sideways and found her.
His mouth opened, but his eyebrows did not even have the time to fly up that she had launched her fist at his face, hitting him in the jaw with enough force to knock him out cold. Bucky stood behind her, the depths of his gaze swimming in careful confusion.
She shoved the unconscious guard aside without thought and accessed the door behind him, ramming in down with the brute force she used to open it.
Grim, the pair entered the small infirmary room.
Still bound with vibranium cuffs to the bed, Steve's astounded expression matched with the burly, male nurse's that stood next to him. Neither seemed capable of finding words to express themselves as they stared, wide-eyed, at the murderously calm Sparrow as she entered the room. Their gazes slipped to the unconscious soldier in the door's threshold, before locking on the stoically terrifying Winter Soldier that still hounded the young woman.
She addressed the nurse in a tone that warranted no pity. "Get out." Her words were deadly. "If you want to live, get out and hide somewhere. If you resist, I will kill you. If you sound the alarm, I will kill you. If you so much as speak, I will kill you. Go. Now."
The nurse was well built and obviously strong… yet, he wasn't dumb. His gaze went from the ferocious assassin to her trailing guard, before reaching the door behind the pair. Swallowing slowly, he raised both empty hands and very obediently left the room without so much as a sound, knowing all too well that he was no match for either of them.
The Sparrow sighed, her eyes finding Steve.
"You've no reason to trust me." She started.
His mouth contorted angrily into a snarl. "You're damn right. What the fuck do you want?"
She gritted her teeth. "You've no reason to trust me, but you'll have to nonetheless." She repeated softly. "Every general, doctor and scientist that remained to HYDRA is dead. I killed them." She let the news sink in as Steve continued to look at her distrustfully, his worried gaze falling to Bucky periodically, even though he knew his friend could neither confirm nor deny what she was saying. "I'm going to need you to follow me. There's one more thing I must do before this is all over. And I need both you and Bucky to be there with me when I do it."
He growled. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
She sighed, nodding as though she knew he'd answer that. "If you come with me… I'll set Bucky free. I promise."
He was staring at her with an ugly expression, refusing to give in, knowing she was probably lying to him.
The Sparrow's hard gaze softened into something almost sad.
"Steve, please…" She whispered. "I've betrayed you, yes. But I want to explain why. And I need you to come with me for that. Please. Please trust me."
Her voice was so small, so pleading… he felt it squeeze at his heart painfully and found that he almost could not resist her… it did not matter that his head was screaming at him that she was lying, manipulating him again… playing with his emotions… none of that mattered. Something within him just wanted to grab her, hold her tight and make sure she was safe… something within him wanted to believe her…
What choice did he have? She held the codes to release Bucky. If she had really killed all those HYDRA agents as she said, she was probably planning something… if he could get himself and his best friend out of this mess, maybe he should give it a go… maybe he should trust her… for the time being.
"Alright." Steve finally conceded. He nonetheless wiggled his bound arms and legs to indicate he was unable to go anywhere. "I'm still not getting out of these, though… and they're vibranium, so no matter the force any of us can apply to them, they won't budge…"
The Sparrow smiled coyly and came closer. "That's where you're wrong: the brute force either of you can apply won't work. But I have thermodynamics working for me, now."
She pressed her hands to the gleaming metal cuff that bound his right arm, her dainty fingers carefully finding the weakest part of it, where a lock had been installed. Her brow furrowed and Steve felt heat rise from her fingertips, to which he responded by becoming unnaturally still, worried that she might lose control and explode.
Noting his reaction, she smirked. "Don't worry. My genes are stable now. It'll be the last thing HYDRA ever does, and it will be their undoing."
The cuff, heated to redness by her fingers and weakened greatly, crumbled apart as she applied the slightest pressure to it. Steve found that he had one free arm, and no burns to worry about… she'd worked carefully and deftly.
As she set to work on his other cuffs, he followed her with a careful gaze.
"Did you plan all of this?" He questioned softly, curious. "Did you plan to have us brought in and to betray HYDRA, in the end?"
She smiled sadly. "Yes and no. Something things I planned, others just… happened along the way. You and Bucky were never my objective, and even though I don't think you'll believe me, you should at least know this: everything that happened between us… even if it was a means to an end, I… I felt something. I didn't want to hurt either of you, ever. But I had to do what I had to do to reach my goal… do you understand?"
She was working on the final cuff that held his leg. Steve sat up and stretched his sore body as he did, testing out his muscles as he moved. He was a bit stiff from staying immobile for those last few days, but he was glad to feel that all pain had left his body, indicating that he'd fully recovered from their last altercation. He could at least fend for himself if things went sideways.
He glanced at his best friend, who was looking at him with a careful, emotionless face. He didn't know if he should say anything… he knew that the man before him was not Bucky… but he also knew that Bucky could probably still hear him and remember everything that was happening.
And just like that, Steve was free of his unbreakable bindings.
He rose gingerly to his feet, swaying slightly as he regained his footing. The Sparrow stepped back next to Bucky, watching him warily as he sighed profoundly and sent her an equally uneasy look.
"Well…" Steve nodded towards the door. "After you."
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I'm going to leave this on a slight cliffhanger, because there's still much to be said and done and I feel like it would be too much for a whole chapter. I'm going to try and start working on the next part as soon as I can before I get sick… again.
Wish me luck, and review to let me know how you liked the story so far!